Put a time limit on the UK’s immigration detentions

• IN the past year the home office locked up nearly 30,000 people, including survivors of torture, trafficking and rape, in immigration detention centres.

There is no time limit on immigration detention, meaning people are locked up with no idea when they will be freed. Some are held for years in prison-like conditions that are rife with abuse.

This indefinite immigration detention tears families apart, devastates mental health, and destroys lives. But 2019 could be the year we end it.

In the coming weeks the government will publish a draft law establishing our post-Brexit immigration system. This is MPs’ chance to put a time limit on immigration detention into UK law.

I trust our MPs will take this chance to speak out against this brutal practice and add their voices to Liberty’s petition calling for a 28-day time limit on detention, by visiting www.endimmigrationdetention.org.uk.